I'll take one Elephant please!

Today was an excellent day!!  We went to an elephant camp that focuses on protecting elephants that are mistreated through extraneous labor practices.  I love elephants and it was a real treat to be so up close and personal with them.

What I learned about elephants today (through my own interactions and through our tour guide)

• males are more energetic and like to fight, therefore the camp only allows female elephants to interact with tourists
• when an elephant flaps its ears it is trying to cool down (I thought maybe because they were happy :))
• they have extremely LONG eyelashes!
• you can tell the age of an elephant by the color of their ears...when they start turning pink they are starting to get old
• elephants can live until they are 100 years old!!
• they have a sense of humor and like to play.  they are also very good with understanding commands like "go", "sit", etc.
• they can drink up 50 liters of water a day
• they love bananas, sugar cane, and pineapples

We rode our elephants through the camp with the assistance of a mahout (trainer).   Since we participated in the 1 day mahout training, we got to train the elephants as well.  We learned how to tell our elephants to go, turn right, turn left, stop, etc. in their language.   Our elephants took us through the river which allowed them to cool off from the heat.  We bought some little bananas to feed our elephants and their trunks followed us...I guess they can smell the bananas! We put some bananas in our hands and the elephants used their trunks to grab the bananas.  They opened wide and then curled their trunks in to eat the bananas.  It was really cute and they were very hungry!  Reminds me of Jaimin at dinner time (just kidding!)

We then took a boat out to a waterfall which had beautiful turquoise water.  We were allowed some time to swim in the falls and Jaimin decided to follow some others and jump off the little cliffs.  Luckily there were no injuries!

Afterwards, we went back to the camp and bathed our elephants.  This was probably one of the best experiences ever.  We got onto the necks of our elephants and they handed us a little wash brush.  We went into the water and the mahout had the elephant sit down in the water (was not expecting this!) so we got soaked.  But the elephants were so playful and started splashing water everywhere.  I used my brush and gave it a bath...excellent experience!

The funny part was Jaimin's elephant.  Before he got on it, the mahout was making it dance.  So it was definitely an elephant with some character...I think the mahout picked Jaimin for that elephant on purpose hahaha.  So when Jaimin got in, the mahout decided to have some fun.  Basically, the elephant dunked into the water completely!  So Jaimin was pretty close to being submerged under water.  He said it felt like the elephant was dancing under water.  His elephant and mahout had us all laughing... poor Jaimin got soaked, but he had a great time.  :o)  

Now I'm just wondering, how do I fit one into our suitcase so I can take it home???

We wanted to thank everyone that has commented and emailed us over the past few weeks!   It has given us motivation to keep trekking and not feel so far away from our family and friends :o)